Funding for recovery of cultural activities and creative industries launched

Ministry of Education and Culture

21.12.2021 15.02 | Published in English on 21.12.2021 at 15.45

Press release

Photo: EC Audiovisual Services. Mauro Bottaro.

The Sustainable Growth Programme for Finland is investing in revitalising culture and the creative industries and in reshaping them in a sustainable way. The Ministry of Education and Culture has granted EUR 4 million in discretionary government grants to those operating in the cultural and creative sectors to create innovative services and to devise novel production and operating procedures. The grant application was the first batch of the Ministry’s overall EUR 30 million financial support for reshaping the cultural and creative sectors.

The financial support provides means for the cultural and creative sectors to reform and digitalise their services and production and operating procedures. Under Finland’s Sustainable Growth Programme, structural support aims to contribute to creating more jobs in the creative industries and to raising the GDP ratio of the creative industries significantly higher than the current 3.5% of GDP by 2026.

Minister of Science and Culture Antti Kurvinen observes that structural support will be used to help the creative industries, which have been hard hit by the pandemic, to shape their future and create innovations.

“Creative industries provide jobs and bring vitality to the regions and wellbeing for people around Finland. We can further strengthen this by assisting cultural activities and the creative industries to grow. My goal is that more and more people in Finland will find work and opportunities for entrepreneurship in the cultural sector,” says Minister Kurvinen.

Altogether 184 applications were submitted by the closing date. Financial support was granted to 20 projects that represent the audiovisual and film industry, architecture, performing arts (music, theatre, dance, circus), design, museums and cultural heritage as well as visual arts. The projects also widely encourage developing services in the cultural industries, promoting cultural exports, and managing and harnessing copyright data.

“The new initiatives will bring a more international approach to the cultural sector and open up new opportunities for accelerating digitalisation. The projects that are being supported involve multidisciplinary cooperation and include operating models that have the potential to change the way we operate and create new opportunities for the cultural sector over the long term,” Kurvinen says.

“The newly distributed funds are only the first of a batch of resources that aims to can speed up growth in the creative industries. I expect to be able to grant funding to an even larger group of projects next spring,” Kurvinen adds.

The next call for applications for structural support will be organised in spring 2022, provided that Parliament decides to allocate the necessary appropriations for this purpose in the 2022 Budget.

Sustainable Growth Programme for Finland

Finland's Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP) is part of the Sustainable Growth Programme for Finland. The Sustainable Growth Programme boosts competitiveness, investment, research, development and innovation, as well as measures to raise skill levels. It is funded from the one-off EU Recovery and Resilience Facility.

The programme is divided into four pillars. The structural support for renewing the cultural and creative sectors belongs in pillar three called: Raising the employment rate and skill levels to accelerate sustainable growth. The funding in pillar three totals EUR 636 million, of which EUR 40 million is allocated to revitalising cultural activities and the creative industries, divided into structural support from the Ministry of Education and Culture (EUR 30 million) and innovation funding from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment/Business Finland (EUR 10 million).

In the first stage, the Ministry of Education and Culture had EUR 4 million at its disposal for structural support within the scope of the implementation of Recovery and Resilience Plan for Finland. The main emphasis in the applications for structural support for the cultural and creative sectors will be in 2022 and 2023. Around EUR 14 million will be made available in 2022, around EUR 9 million in 2023 and around EUR 3 million in 2024.